"Black magic", an illusion - this is how Internet users call an audio recording made by schoolchildren. On it, in different parts of the text, the names Yanny or Laurel are pronounced. But some users only hear one word throughout the entire recording.
Recently, social media users have been actively discussing various illusions. An audio fragment synthesized by schoolchildren using an online dictionary was posted on Instagram. Its peculiarity is that people hear words differently when playing the same file: “Yanny or Laurel? How a Sound Clip Divided America."
A spectrogram was taken. She showed that the word Laurel is heard at lower frequencies, while the second word stands out at higher frequencies. An audio clip is presented on the network, which is an equivalent mixture of low and high frequencies. The New York Times has made a special tool that allows you to remove high or low frequencies. Despite this, many people could not recognize both words in the recording.
Features of perception
In one of the most popular comments, the entry is called "black magic." People note that Jenny and Laurel sound different, but it is very difficult to determine the correct arrangement in the recording itself.
An assistant professor at Maastricht University explained that there are people who are more susceptible to high frequency sounds. They hear Jenny. The rest is the second word. The same situation is observed with those who listen to the fragment on different devices. Perception of the same person may vary due to frequency.
Age features and gender
The human ear perceives sounds in the range from 16 to 22000 Hz, but this limit changes with age. This applies to both the upper and lower limits.
After age 50, many people develop presbycusis. This is a form of sensory hearing loss. It is expressed in changes in the hair and supporting cells. For this reason, high frequencies are less perceived with age. According to this explanation, the people who perceive Yanny have a sharper hearing.
Gender also has an impact. Women are more sensitive to high frequencies, and low frequencies are perceived equally by both sexes. This is another scientific explanation for why two words are perceived differently by ear.
What else influences the correct perception of the recording?
There are several parameters:
- Play speed. Thanks to special programs, you can change this parameter or remove the bass. This was done with the recording. Because of this, it turned out that many people first hear Yanny, and only then Laurel. There are also those who do not hear the middle name in the text at all.
- Analysis of information by the brain. Some scientists suggest that due to noise or poor recording quality, the brain simply “thinks out” the missing sounds.
- Psychological attitude. According to one of the hypotheses, if you focus on one version while listening, then you will be able to hear it.
Recall that this illusion is a continuation of the "dress of discord" that angered the entire Internet in February 2015. Then the public could not decide what color the dress is shown in the photo. This phenomenon was explained by the biological characteristics of the organim - people perceive light in a photograph differently.
The recording itself was made in 2007 by opera singer Jay Orby Jones. He said that he was doing a part-time job and voiced words for an English language learning service. According to him, the word "Laurel" sounds on the controversial recording.
